CCSS and Informational Text

Last night I had the opportunity to take part in a free webinar about the CCSS and informational texts sponsored by The Text Project, featuring presenter Nell Duke. It was very interesting for a variety of reasons, but one of the points she made that stuck with me goes back to one of my own concerns with the CCSS: that people will make assumptions about what the standards mean and will begin making policy "based" on the standards without having fully read them. (As you can tell from my previous post, I am really concerned about the aliteracy of our policy makers.)


This point is relevant to middle & high school language arts/English/reading teachers (which is a group close to my heart, as I retired from their ranks), and to content area teachers at these same levels. It concerns the amount of informational text students are to be reading according to the standards and, most importantly, where they should be reading these texts. Yes, by 8th grade, 55% of the texts students read should be informational texts, according to the CCSS. Yes, this is included in a document with a title that begins "Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts." But the possible "pitfall" identified by Dukes, which I have already seen some evidence of in schools I have visited, is that the rest of that document's title, as well as the actual text within, will be ignored, putting an imbalanced onus on language arts/English teachers while also negatively affecting the students in their classes. The rest of that title reads "& Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects." And if one keeps reading below that handy chart on page 5, one will see some very important statements, including this one:

"Because the ELA classroom must focus on literature (stories, drama, and poetry) as well as literary nonfiction, a great deal of informational reading in grades 6–12 must take place in other classes..."

Yes, folks - all those informational texts are not supposed to be crammed into the ELA class.  ELA classes are still predominantly literature classes, even under the CCSS. Students should be reading in other classes.  Yes, it would be wonderful if you could pull in texts other than the textbook for this purpose; in fact, it would be beneficial in a variety of ways! How about some news articles about the latest in scientific breakthroughs?  A magazine article about the new discoveries at an ancient ruin and what those discoveries tell us about a long-dead culture?  How about, instead of just showing students how to make their next project, you give them a how-to guide to read and discuss it with them?

This is, of course, only one of the possible issues that could arise with the CCSS. As with most ideas, the CCSS look good on paper (at least, it does to me); it's once humans get involved in implementation, interpreting and misinterpreting, that the true problems will begin.  Can we all just sit down, read closely (like we want the students to do) and try to get this thing right?